


Floors Are Burning Down

by dysphorie



Series: drabble drabble, bitch bitch [7]
Category: Slipknot (Band)
Genre: Angst, Blow Jobs, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Blood, Minor Violence, Post-Break Up, Sad, Smut, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:00:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26000773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dysphorie/pseuds/dysphorie
Summary: "Gotta badge for my scars just the other dayWore it proud for the sake of my sanityI could see the flames burn bright from the winding roadLike a haunting page from our history"Or, vignettes from a break-up
Relationships: Jim Root/Corey Taylor, Jim Root/Mick Thomson
Series: drabble drabble, bitch bitch [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1488107
Comments: 32
Kudos: 28





	1. Floors Are Burning Down

**Author's Note:**

> This was written, basically, out of spite. It's sad, it's been tagged, don't read it then moan at me
> 
> Enjoy

The front door slams behind Jim, loud and jarring. The cranky old bitch across the hall is going to read him the riot act about noise again. Jim doesn’t care. Isn't sure he's capable of caring anymore. _Oh,_ how maudlin. He’s so fucking emo sometimes.

His clothes stay where they fall as he makes his way to the bathroom. Nearly blind in the dark, he doesn’t turn the lights on until he knows he’s looking in the mirror above the sink. There Jim flicks on the lights that surround the mirror. Mistake.

He can't look himself in the eye. Punches the mirror instead. _Fuck_ , that hurts. His fret hand aches and he knows it's his own stupid fault, but at least they're not on tour anymore.

Blood drips onto the floor tiles as he crosses to the shower, still he doesn’t turn the light on. Turns the water on. Hot. Too hot. It sears his skin. Jim doesn’t care. The wadded-up towel, soaked through, feels disgusting against his teeth when he crams it into his mouth. It muffles his screams enough that the neighbours wont complain.

The water that swirls down the plughole is tinged red for a long time.

\-----

His duffle bag lies forgotten where he dropped it in the hallway. It'll lie there for nearly a week, until Jim trips over it. Then it'll be thrown across the room, contents strewn about like so much wedding confetti. Jim doesn’t care.

\-----

Every time his phone vibrates, Jim's heartbeat thunders in his ears. He can feel it in his fucking throat. It's never who he wants it to be. Who he doesn’t want it to be. Who he...he has no idea. It just rings and rings while he stares and stares, and sometimes he answers it and pretends to listen to the supportive voice on the line. He can hear the way their necks bend in sympathy. It makes him feel sick. 

After one particularly saccharine conversation full of stupid platitudes like _"He'll be back,"_ and _"You're better off without him,"_ he doesn’t even hang up before he hauls back and launches the phone across the room. Usually there would be that deep pang of regret in his gut that hits him before his phone hits the wall, but this time there’s nothing but a vague sense of relief. Briefly he wonders if the person on the other end heard the crash, or if the phone even disconnected the call upon impact. If they heard that they’re probably gonna be mad. Jim doesn’t care. 

Well, he doesn’t care, right up until he has to boot up his laptop and order a new phone. _Then_ he cares. Almost.

\-----

Corey comes round one day, and their mouths are crushed together before he’s even properly in the apartment. Jim manhandles him into his lap on the couch, can’t face fucking in his own bed yet, and fucks up into him, hard and raw. Tears streaming down both their faces as Corey clings to him and Jim mentally pushes him away. Only mentally. Physically he holds him even closer. It all feels...distant. Closed. Jim feels empty and knows Corey can tell he's closed himself off. Can feel it in his kisses and hear it in their trembling sighs.

Taking Corey’s hands, Jim pulls them up until they’re around his throat, and Corey doesn’t need to be told what to do next. Jim lets his head tip back into the pressure, welcoming the momentary oblivion.

\-----

Corey tries to bring up Mick. Once. Jim slaps him. Pushes him to his knees and chokes him with his dick while making it clear, in no uncertain terms, how much worse he will make it if Corey mentions Mick again. Corey gags, heaves, nods. Coughs the word _"Promise,"_ around Jim's cock with his wet eyes screwed shut in pain and concentration. Jim tries to tell himself he doesn’t care.

\-----

The couch is wearing unevenly from Jim spending more time on it than usual. Sleeping on it. Still avoiding his bed on the days his memories wont stop taunting him. Of sweat-soaked sheets and fists and teeth and feeling full and complete.

It's lumpy and hurts his back. Does Jim care?

\-----

Things get a little better. Not day by day. Some days are better, some are worse. As they pass though, Jim feels more like himself. His hand has healed enough to pick up a guitar again, though he still has to skip some of his favourite warm-up tunes. Corey comes over and they jam for a while before Jim picks him up and takes him to bed. His actual bed, to make him cry the good kind of tears this time. It still feels empty, but at least he feels almost open again. Able to be filled again.

\-----

Human necessity finds Jim in whatever store his car pulled into. Driving on autopilot, it's Walmart or Target, somewhere like that. He's just contemplating the reason for the existence of Danish Wedding cookies and what choice brought a previous shopper to leave a pregnancy test (unused, thankfully) next to them, when he sees it.

It's a glimpse. Not even a sighting. He could be hallucinating, he's still barely sleeping. But Jim would _swear_ he just saw the tail end of a person turning the corner at the end of the aisle that looked a lot like -

Even thinking of his name makes Jim's stomach roil. All he saw was long black hair draped over broad shoulders and a flash of what looked like big black boots. _Looked_ like. Might not have been. And even then, thousands of people fit that description. Doesn’t mean it was -

Jim turns in the opposite direction. Abandons his cart and walks. Fast. Faster. Turns the corner in the opposite direction and keeps walking. Jogging. Turns towards the exit and nearly takes out a display of diapers nearly as tall as himself and three old ladies chatting in the middle of the aisle. The looks they shoot him are nasty but he doesn’t notice. His vision has tunnelled in so sharply he feels like he has motion sickness on top of the ache of nausea that gripped his stomach the second it all happened.

 _Get out. Get out, get away. Get out, get away, get home, get safe._ Jim repeats it to himself until he's out the store, dropping his keys as he tries to unlock his car. He throws himself into the front seat. There's a beat where all he can process is the pounding of his heart in his head, before he twists to throw up in the footwell of the passenger seat. 

\-----

The takeaway cartons are getting out of hand. Chris throws them away while Corey coaxes Jim into the shower. Jim sits on the floor and lets Corey scrub him, his hair, his beard, and doesn’t complain when Jim drags him under the stream of water. Just to hold, to be held. Corey says nothing when Chris comes in to check on them. He doesn’t have to.

Jim cares so much he feels like he's going to explode.

\-----

The insistent ringing of the still-unfamiliar ringtone drags Jim from his pharmaceutically enhanced sleep. Groggy and not entirely tethered to reality, Jim untangles himself from the itchy blanket that's usually draped over the back of the couch and slaps the coffee table a few times until he finds his phone.

Hits the phone, and hits the _answer_ icon. Without noticing. Where are his glasses? He's trying to squint to see the screen, to find the answer button, not registering that the phone isn't ringing anymore. The phone is halfway to his face when a quiet voice rumbles out into the dark room, tinny but perfectly audible.

_"Jim? Hey...it's Mick."_

\-----


	2. Intrinsic Grey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Nail my thoughts into the floor_   
>  _Can't hear you speak, can't hear you now_   
>  _Every time I think of you, it makes me feel so dead inside_   
>  _Love you and I hate you in the same breath"_
> 
> or, more vignettes from a break-up

_"Jim? Hey...it's Mick."_

Jim drops the phone like he's been scalded. Mick's voice is muffled by the rug now but Jim can still hear it. Saying his name over and over, _Jim Jim Jim,_ it's all he can hear despite knowing Mick _must_ be saying something else. He just stares at it. For a minute or ten or an hour.

Then the screen goes black. Mick's hung up.

 _Fuck,_ Jim doesn’t know if he's happy or angry or sad or fucking...fucking _what_ _?_ What, is he happy? That Mick called and Jim technically missed it? All this time and he thought he knew how he'd react if it happened, but that all hinged upon him being conscious and alert and vaguely prepared if and when it happened. 

Now it's happened and Jim fucked up and what if Mick doesn’t call back? 

He stares at the screen until it goes black and all he can see is his own wan face staring back at him.

\-----

Days pass. Mick doesn’t call again. Jim tells himself he doesn’t care, cos it's not like he wants to talk to Mick anyway. He still sleeps with his phone in his hand, or tucked under his pillow. Just in case.

\-----

On day four, Jim snaps. Half a dozen times he pulls Mick’s number up, finger poised to hit the _call_ button. Half a dozen times he closes the app. Well, he tells Corey that _"i_ _t only happened like six times, man",_ cos there’s no way he’s going to be honest with himself. Corey doesn’t press the issue. Jim knows he sees through the lie, but silently thanks him for pretending to be convinced.

Corey’s always been his ride or die. In a different way from Mick, obviously, but still. He wouldn’t judge Jim for not-calling Mick a million times if he told him the truth. Jim still can’t bring himself to do that.

He intentionally leaves his phone in the living room when he decides to fast forward the day by going to bed. Strangely he's gone from barely being able to look in the room to spending as much time in bed as he can. The grey that bathes the room, courtesy of the blackout blinds, soothes him somewhat. Not pitch black but an abstract absence of light. It mirrors his general mood.

\-----

 _Chris comes over, later than he usually would but he had called and called to no answer and it gave him...he doesn’t know, a_ feeling _he just couldn't shake and figured, hey, better safe than sorry. He lets himself in with the key under the doormat and isn't surprised to find the place is in complete darkness. Peeking around the bedroom door he finds him; Jim's asleep in just a cut-off t-shirt and his boxers, and the blankets are shoved to the bottom of the bed despite the goosebumps on his thighs._

_Slowly, carefully, Chris slides into bed behind him and tugs the blankets over them both. He has zero fucking clue why, it just...seems like the right thing to do. Jim being so isolated lately, more so than usual, has him worried._

_Jim instantly rolls over, and Chris worries that he's woken him. He's been sleeping so poorly recently. But no, he's still asleep. Jim burrows into Chris's chest though, sighing softly. He smells of sleep and the laundry detergent Clown's wife used when she did Jim's laundry, and all Chris can think to do is wrap his arm around his friend and try to get some sleep too. He closes his eyes and buries his nose in the soft waves of Jim's hair._

_Equally soft breaths tuft against Chris’s t-shirt, warming his skin. Then there's pressure, warmer still. At first he thinks it's just Jim fidgeting. His head tilts up. Then warm dry lips are against his neck, and Chris sucks in a quiet breath before his brain catches up with him._

_"Jim, wh-" he starts, but Jim keeps going and reaches his lips. Fuck, Chris forgot what a good kisser Jim is, even now when he's drowsy and out of it. Just so soft and giving. He can't even remember the last time they fucked around. Shame. They'd always been good together, but not in the same way as Jim and Mick. They were -_

_A warm hand clumsily groping at his crotch startles him. No, that can’t happen._

_"No, Peach," Chris whispers, lifting Jim's hand away. Jim whines, and it hurts but Chris resists it. Comforting Jim is something he's happy to do, really_ wants _to do, but not like that. That wont help._

_Jim murmurs, “Please.” Chris nearly breaks._

_"Just...just c'mere", he says instead. Wrapping his arms around Jim and kissing him silent._

\-----

Groaning a little, Jim unclenches his sleep-stiff fingers from Chris’s t-shirt. Chris mumbles something. Jim doesn’t catch what. It doesn’t matter; Jim’s just thankful that Chris is still here. His arms are tight and secure, making Jim feel a little bit calmer, a little less manic than he has recently. 

Under the cold grey light of morning behind the blackout blind, Jim kisses Chris awake.

\-----

Jim almost wishes that the knowledge that he’s gone back to fucking around with half the band again in Mick’s absence would affect Mick in some way. Whatever way. Make him sad, angry, happy, disappointed. Doesn’t matter. Just make him feel some kinda way. 

\-----

"Nah dude, anchovies are way worse on pizza than pineapple, sorry 'bout it. I'm not a fuckin' ninja turtle."

"The ninja turtles never had anchovies on their pizzas _actually,_ Corey."

" _Actu_ ally they did, in like three episodes. Way more often than pineapple anyway."

The conversation is making Jim wish he'd never suggested getting pizza in the first place. It was the first thing he'd actually _wanted_ to eat in weeks and now the moron twins are wasting their one shared brain cell on arguing about fucking cartoon anthropomorphic turtles. He can't even remember what kind of fucking pizza they'd ordered in the end. 

They're just debating the pizza orders of other retro cartoon characters _("Lion-O would totally order some weird cauliflower base shit y’know, guy's gotta watch his carb/protein balance,")_ when there's a sharp rap at the door. A brief verbal scuffle ensues about who's getting the door. Corey loses and sulks across the living room.

A beat of silence passes then Corey, for some reason, is hurling himself through the air like a fucking spider monkey at whoever knocked the door. Chris jumps out of his seat and grabs him before Jim can even quite process what's happening. All he can see and hear is scuffling and growling and _"Corey, NO! Jesus fucking christ, stop!"_

He's just wondering why Corey would attack the pizza guy when he sees it: the long black hair. The big black boots. Corey's panting and Chris is whispering in a quiet but angry sounding voice. He doesn’t need to hear it to get the gist of the conversation.

Jim looks away, picks a spot on the wall and stares at it. It's roughly where Mick's eyes would be if he were sitting in the chair opposite him. A deep breath. A long sigh. A decision made.

"Let him in."

Jim's voice is soft and quiet, full of uncertainty. Chris and Corey twist away from the door to look at Jim, wearing twin expressions of disbelief as Jim repeats himself.

"I said, let him in."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dysphorie.tumblr.com

**Author's Note:**

> dysphorie.tumblr.com


End file.
